


Thought and Memory

by notreadybutwilling



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-16
Updated: 2013-09-16
Packaged: 2017-12-26 18:15:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 362
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/968761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notreadybutwilling/pseuds/notreadybutwilling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock Holmes plays the violin. And he thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Thought and Memory

**Author's Note:**

> This was the first Sherlock fic I ever wrote, and I finally stumbled across it again so here you go! Thanks to Riss again (as well as Felicity when I couldn't find my copy of it omg she's the best)

Through night and day, the sun and the moon compete for the attention and affection of an elegant silhouette, embracing the tall form with their respective light; neither can move him, shatter his cool veneer or tint his pallid skin. He's made of soft marble and ice and he doesn't move from the window for days, seemingly free from hunger and thirst.

When he does move, it's stiff and halting, as if his body is not his own as he takes up an old violin. He spends too much time tuning it, finding himself thinking back to a pristine instrument at another flat's window, from a different time and with an entirely different meaning in that it has some personal value to him.

The first pull of bow against string makes him sigh pleasantly, drinking in the sound of pale music filling an empty room.

Sherlock Holmes plays the violin. And he thinks.

He thinks about the room he stands in. Cold. He's never minded the cold until now, and his mind whirs as he struggles to pinpoint the beginning of this development; he hasa vague conclusion involving an orange blanket and wonders if you can't mind something if you've never had better, and how you can't miss something until you've gotten it.

Or maybe you  _can_ miss what you've never had.

He backtracks, trying to reseal the cracks in his porcelain expression, now more fragile than before. He thinks of how the notes feel bouncing off his skin now, and the way that words taste; distinct and overwhelming, which is why it's best to run through them and end your sentences quick before your own words overtake you.

"Experiment" tastes like spices used in curry, keen and anticipatory; "happiness" tastes bitter, while "logic" and "deduction" taste cool like mint. And "John"-

The cracks widen, dark lines that he can feel gaping on his face and in his chest and he retreats frantically from his thoughts, thinking instead of music and music alne as the rosin on his bow mixes with a tear or two.

Sherlock Holmes continues to play the violin, but now he tries not to think.

It doesn't work.


End file.
